Just when I thought this new blog site was able to breathe unaided, an unexpected disaster strikes. My dashboard disappears! My blog was DOA.
It seems like this happens to a lot of people so here’s what I learnt.
Short-term
You can log back in to your website (and hence your dashboard) like this www.YourBlog.com/wp-admin/admin.php
This should get you to a log-in page where you can get yourself back in. Phew!
Long-term
But this just cures the symptom and, in my experience, doesn’t cure the problem. You don’t want to have to log in like this each and every time. I did a bit of research and came across a possible cause – an index.php file in my wp-plugins folder!
Don’t know what I’m talking about? Follow these steps:-
- Go to your FTP software (mine’s Filezilla)
- Connect to your host server. Typing ftp.YourBlog.com should get you there (plus username and password for your web host)
- Once you’re connected, navigate down the right hand side (Remote Site) until you get to WP-content. You should find a plugins folder. Open that up and see if there’s an index.php file. If there is, trash it! (Maybe save it somewhere first as back-up)
I don’t know how the index.php file got there. Did I do that at some point? Or did it find its own way there? Who knows. But if it’s messing with your site, get rid of it.
Hope that helps.